The Bartlett Mystery

She proffered the newspaper purchased before lunch, which she still held in her left hand. The impulsive action broadened Steingall’s smile. He was still utterly at a loss to account for this well-mannered girl’s queer environment.

“Why,” he cried, “I quite understand that. Mr. Clancy didn’t tell you we regarded you as a desperate crook, did he?”

Winifred yielded to the chief’s obvious desire to lift their talk out of the rut of formality. She could not help being interested in these two men, so dissimilar in their characteristics, yet each so utterly unlike the somewhat awesome personage she would have sketched if asked to define her idea of a “detective.” Clancy, who had taken a chair at the side of the table, sat on it as though he were an automaton built of steel springs and ready to bounce instantly in any given direction. Steingall’s huge bulk lolled back indolently. He had been smoking when the others entered, and a half-consumed cigar lay on an ash-tray. Winifred thought it would be rather amusing if she, in turn, made things comfortable.

“Please don’t put away your cigar on my account,” she said. “I like the smell of good tobacco.”

“Ha!” cackled Clancy.

“Thank you,” said Steingall, tucking the Havana into a corner of his mouth. The two men exchanged glances, and Winifred smiled. Steingall’s look of tolerant contempt at his assistant was distinctly amusing.

“That little shrimp can’t smoke, Miss Bartlett,” he explained, “so he is an anti-tobacco maniac.”

“You wouldn’t care to take poison, would you?” and Clancy shot the words at Winifred so sharply that she was almost startled.

“No. Of course not,” she agreed.

“Yet that is what that mountain of brawn does during fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. Nicotine is one of the deadliest poisons known to science. Even when absorbed into the tissues in minute doses it corrodes the brain and atrophies the intellect. Did you see how he grinned when you described that vile weed as ‘good tobacco’? Now, you don’t know good, meaning real, tobacco from bad, do you?”

“I know whether or not I like the scent of it,” persisted Winifred. She began to think that officialdom in Mulberry Street affected the methods of the court circles frequented by Alice and the Mad Hatter.

“Don’t mind him,” put in Steingall genially. “He’s a living example of the close alliance between insanity and genius. On the tobacco question he’s simply cracked, and that is all there is to it. Now we’re wasting your time by this chatter. I’ll come to serious business by asking a question which you will not find embarrassing for a good many years yet to come. How old are you?”

“Nineteen last birthday.”

“When were you born?”

“On June 6, 1894.”

“And where?”

Winifred reddened slightly.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What?”

Steingall seemed to be immensely surprised, and Winifred proceeded forthwith to throw light on this singular admission, which was exactly what he meant her to do.

“That is a very odd statement, but it is quite true,” she said earnestly. “My aunt would never tell me where I was born. I believe it was somewhere in the New England States, but I have only the vaguest grounds for the opinion. What I mean is that aunty occasionally reveals a close familiarity with Boston and Vermont.”

“What is her full name?”

“Rachel Craik.”

“She has never been married?”

Winifred’s sense of humor was keen. She laughed at the idea of “Aunt Rachel” having a husband.

“I don’t think aunty will ever marry anybody now,” she said. “She holds the opposite sex in detestation. No man is ever admitted to our house.”

“It is a small, old-fashioned residence, but very large for the requirements of two women?” continued Steingall. He took no notes, and might have been discussing the weather, now that the first whiff of wonderment as to Winifred’s lack of information about her birth-place had passed.

“Yes. We have several rooms unoccupied.”

“And unfurnished?”

“Say partly furnished.”

“Ever had any boarders?”

“No.”

“No servants, of course?”

“No.”

“And how long have you been employed in Messrs. Brown, Son & Brown’s bookbinding department?”

“About six months.”

“What do you earn?”

“Eight dollars a week.”

“Is that the average amount paid to the other girls?”

“Slightly above the average. I am supposed to be quick and accurate.”

“Well now, Miss Bartlett, you seem to be a very intelligent and well-educated young woman. How comes it that you are employed in such work?”

“It was the best I could find,” she volunteered.

“No doubt. But you must be well aware that few, if any, among the girls in the bookbinding business can be your equal in education, and, may I add, in refinement. Now, if you were a bookkeeper, a cashier or a typist, I could understand it; but it does seem odd to me that you should be engaged in this kind of job.”

“It was my aunt’s wish,” said Winifred simply.

“Ah!”

Steingall dwelt on the monosyllable.

“What reason did she give for such a singular choice?” he went on.

“I confess it has puzzled me,” was the unaffected answer. “Although aunty is severe in her manner she is well educated, and she taught me nearly all I know, except music and singing, for which I took lessons from Signor Pecci ever since I was a tiny mite until about two years ago. Then, I believe, aunty lost a good deal of money, and it became necessary that I should earn something. Signor Pecci offered to get me a position in a theater, but she would not hear of it, nor would she allow me to enter a shop or a restaurant. Really, it was aunty who got me work with Messrs. Brown, Son & Brown.”

“In other words,” said Steingall, “you were deliberately reared to fill a higher social station, and then, for no assignable reason, save a whim, compelled to sink to a much lower level?”

“I do not know. I never disputed aunty’s right to do what she thought best.”

“Well, well, it is odd. Do you ever entertain any visitors?”

“None whatever. We have no acquaintances, and live very quietly.”

“Do you mean to say that your aunt never sees any one but yourself and casual callers, such as tradespeople?”

“So far as I know, that is absolutely the case.”

“Very curious,” commented Steingall. “Does your aunt go out much?”

“She leaves the house occasionally after I have gone to bed at ten o’clock, but that is seldom, and I have no idea where she goes. Every week-day, you know, I am away from home between seven in the morning and half past six at night, excepting Saturday afternoons. If possible, I take a long walk before going to work.”

“Do you go straight home?”

Winifred remembered Mr. Fowle’s query, and smiled again.

“Yes,” she said.

“Now last night, for instance, was your aunt at home when you reached the house?”

“No; she was out. She did not come in until half past nine.”

“Did she go out again last night?”

“I do not know. I was tired. I went to bed rather early.”

Steingall bent over his notes for the first time since Winifred appeared. His lips were pursed, and he seemed to be weighing certain facts gravely.

“I think,” he said at last, “that I need not detain you any longer, Miss Bartlett. By the way, I’ll give you a note to your employers to say that you are in no way connected with the crime we have under investigation. It may, perhaps, save you needless annoyance.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the girl. “But won’t you tell me why you have asked me so many questions about my aunt and her ways?”

Steingall looked at her thoughtfully before he answered: “In the first place, Miss Bartlett, tell me this. I assume Miss Craik is your mother’s sister. When did your mother die?”

Winifred blushed with almost childish discomfiture. “It may seem very stupid to say such a thing,” she admitted, “but I have never known either a father or a mother. My aunt has always refused to discuss our family affairs in any way whatever. I fear her view is that I am somewhat lucky to be alive at all.”

“Few people would be found to agree with her,” said the chief gallantly. “Now I want you to be brave and patient. A very extraordinary crime has been committed, and the police occasionally find clues in the most unexpected quarters. I regret to tell you that Miss Craik is believed to be in some way connected with the mysterious disappearance, if not the death, of Mr. Ronald Tower, and she is being held for further inquiries.”

Winifred’s face blanched. “Do you mean that she will be kept in prison?” she said, with a break in her voice.

“She must be detained for a while, but you need not be so alarmed. Her connection with this outrage may be as harmless as your own, though I can inform you that, without your knowledge, your house last night certainly sheltered two men under grave suspicion, and for whom we are now searching.”

“Two men! In our house!” cried the amazed girl.

“Yes. I tell you this to show you the necessity there is for calmness and reticence on your part. Don’t speak to any one concerning your visit here. Above all else, don’t be afraid. Have you any one with whom you can go to live until Miss Craik is” – he corrected himself – “until matters are cleared up a bit?”

“No,” wailed Winifred, her pent-up feelings breaking through all restraint. “I am quite alone in the world now.”

“Come, come, cheer up!” said Steingall, rising and patting her on the shoulder. “This disagreeable business may only last a day or two. You will not want for anything. If you are in any trouble all you need do is to let me know. Moreover, to save you from being afraid of remaining alone in the house at night, I’ll give special instructions to the police in your precinct to watch the place closely. Now, be a brave girl and make the best of it.”

The house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street would, of course, be an object of special interest to the police for other reasons apart from those suggested by the chief. Nevertheless, his kindness had the desired effect, and Winifred strove to repress her tears.

“Here is your note,” he said, “and I advise you to forget this temporary trouble in your work. Mr. Clancy will accompany you in the car if you wish.”

“Please – I would rather be alone,” she faltered. She was far from Mulberry Street before she remembered that she had said nothing about seeing the boat that morning!

CHAPTER V

PERSECUTORS

During the brief run up-town Winifred managed to dry her tears, yet the mystery and terror of the circumstances into which she was so suddenly plunged seemed to become more distressful the longer she puzzled over them. She could not find any outlet from a labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty. She strove again to read the printed accounts of the crime, in order to wrest from them some explanation of the extraordinary charge brought against her aunt, but the words danced before her eyes. At last, with an effort, she threw the paper away and bravely resolved to follow Steingall’s parting advice.

When she reached the warehouse she was naturally the object of much covert observation. Neither Miss Sugg nor Mr. Fowle spoke to her, but Winifred thought she saw a malicious smile on the forewoman’s face. The hours passed wearily until six o’clock. She was about to quit the building with her companions – many of whom meant bombarding her with questions at the first opportunity – when she was again requested to report at the office.

A clerk handed her one of the firm’s pay envelopes.

“What’s comin’ to you up to date,” he blurted out, “and a week’s salary instead of notice.”

She was dismissed!

Some girls might have collapsed under this final blow, but not so Winifred Bartlett. Knowing it was useless to say anything to the clerk, she spiritedly demanded an interview with the manager. This was refused. She insisted, and sent Steingall’s letter to the inner sanctum, having concluded that the dismissal was in some way due to her visit to the detective bureau.

The clerk came back with the note and a message: “The firm desire me to tell you,” he said, “that they quite accept your explanation, but they have no further need of your services.”

Explanation! How could a humble employee explain away the unsavory fact that the smug respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had been outraged by the name of the firm appearing in the evening papers as connected, even in the remotest way, with the sensational crime now engaging the attention of all New York?

Winifred walked into the street. Something in her face warned even the most inquisitive of her fellow-workers to leave her alone. Besides, the poor always evince a lively sympathy with others in misfortune. These working-class girls were consumed with curiosity, yet they respected Winifred’s feelings, and did not seek to intrude on her very apparent misery by inquiry or sympathetic condolence. A few among them watched, and even followed her a little way as she turned the corner into Fourteenth Street.

“She goes home by the Third Avenue L,” said Carlotta. “Sometimes I’ve walked with her that far. H’lo! Why’s Fowle goin’ east in a taxi! He lives on West Seventeenth. Betcher a dime he’s after Winnie.”

“Whadda ya mean – after her?” cried another girl.

“Why, didn’t you hear how he spoke up for her this mornin’ when Ole Mother Sugg handed her the lemon about bein’ late?”

“But he got her fired.”

“G’wan!”

“He did, I tell you. I heard him phonin’ a newspaper. He made ’em wise about Winnie’s bein’ pinched, and then took the paper to the boss. I was below with a packin’ check when he went in, so I saw that with my own eyes, an’ that’s just as far as I’d trust Fowle.”

The cynic’s shrewd surmise was strictly accurate. Fowle had, indeed, secured Winifred’s dismissal. Her beauty and disdain had stirred his lewd impulses to their depths. His plan now was to intercept her before she reached her home, and pose as the friend in need who is the most welcome of all friends. Knowing nothing whatsoever of her domestic surroundings he deemed it advisable to make inquiries on the spot. His crafty and vulpine nature warned him against running his head into a noose, since Winifred might own a strong-armed father or brother, but no one could possibly resent a well-meant effort at assistance.

The mere sight of her graceful figure as she hurried along with pale face and downcast eyes inflamed him anew when his taxi sped by. She could not avoid him now. He would go up-town by an earlier train, and await her at the corner of One Hundred and Twelfth Street.

But the wariest fox is apt to find his paw in a trap, and Fowle, though foxy, was by no means so astute as he imagined himself. Once again that day Fate was preparing a surprise for Winifred, and not the least dramatic feature thereof connoted the utter frustration and undoing of Fowle.

About the time that Winifred caught her train it befell that Rex Carshaw, gentleman of leisure, the most industrious idler who ever extracted dividends from a business he cared little about, drove a high-powered car across the Harlem River by the Willis Avenue Bridge, and entered that part of Manhattan which lies opposite Randall’s Island.

This was a new world to the eyes of the young millionaire. Nor was it much to his liking. The mixed citizenry of New York must live somewhere, but Carshaw saw no reason why he and his dainty car should loiter in a district which seemed highly popular with all sorts of undesirable folks; so, after skirting Thomas Jefferson Park he turned west, meaning to reach the better roadway and more open stretches of Fifth Avenue.

A too hasty express wagon, however, heedless of the convenience of wealthy automobilists, bore down on Carshaw like a Juggernaut car, and straightway smashed the differential, besides inflicting other grievous injuries on a complex mechanism. A policeman, the proprietor of a neighboring garage, and a greatly interested crowd provided an impromptu jury for the dispute between Carshaw and the express man.

The latter put up a poor case. It consisted almost entirely of the bitter and oft-repeated plaint:

“What was a car like that doin’ here, anyhow?”

The question sounded foolish. It was nothing of the kind. Only the Goddess of Wisdom could have answered it, and she, being invisible, was necessarily dumb.

At last, when the damaged car was housed for the night, Carshaw set out to walk a couple of blocks to the elevated railway, his main objective being dinner with his mother in their apartment on Madison Avenue. He found himself in a comparatively quiet street, wherein blocks of cheap modern flats alternated with the dingy middle-class houses of a by-gone generation. He halted to light a cigarette, and, at that moment, a girl of remarkable beauty passed, walking quickly, yet without apparent effort. She was pallid and agitated, and her eyes were swimming with ill-repressed tears.

As a matter of fact, Winifred nearly broke down at sight of her empty abode. It was a cheerless place at best, and now the thought of being left there alone had induced a sense of feminine helplessness which overcame her utterly.

Carshaw was distinctly impressed. In the first place, he was young and good-looking, and human enough to try and steal a second glance at such a lovely face, though the steadily decreasing light was not altogether favorable. Secondly, he thought he had never seen any girl who carried herself with such rhythmic grace. Thirdly, here was a woman in distress, and, to one of Carshaw’s temperament and upbringing, that in itself formed a convincing reason why he should wish to help her.

He racked his brain for a fitting excuse to offer his services. He could find none. Above all else, Rex Carshaw was a gentleman.

Of course, he could not tell that the way was being made smooth for knight-errantry by a certain dragon named Fowle. He did not even quicken his pace, and was musing on the curious incongruity of the maid in distress with the rather squalid district in which she had her being when he saw a man bar her path.

This was Fowle, who, with lifted hat, was saying deferentially: “Miss Bartlett, may I have a word?”

Winifred stopped as though she had run into an unseen obstruction. She even recoiled a step or two.

“What do you want?” she said, and there was a quality of scorn, perhaps of fear, in her voice that sent Carshaw, now five yards away, into the open doorway of a block of flats. He was an impulsive young man. He liked the girl’s face, and quite as fixedly disliked Fowle’s. So he adopted the now world-famous policy of watchful waiting, being not devoid of a dim belief that the situation might evolve an overt act.

“I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to-day,” said Fowle, trying to speak sympathetically, but not troubling to veil the bold admiration of his stare. “I tried hard to stop unpleasantness, and even risked a row with the boss. But it was no use. I couldn’t do a thing.”

“But why are you here?” demanded Winifred, and those sorrow-laden eyes of hers might have won pity from any but one of Fowle’s order.

“To help, of course,” came the ready assurance. “I can get you a far better job than stitchin’ octavos at Brown’s. You’re not meanin’ to stay home with your folks, I suppose?”

“That is kind of you,” said Winifred. “I may have to depend altogether on my own efforts, so I shall need work. I’ll write to you for a reference, and perhaps for advice.”

She had unwittingly told Fowle just what he was eager to know – that she was friendless and alone. He prided himself on understanding the ways of women, and lost no more time in coming to the point.

“Listen, now, Winnie,” he said, drawing nearer, “I’d like to see you through this worry. Forget it. You can draw down twice or three times the money as a model in Goldberg’s Store. I know Goldberg, an’ can fix things. An’, say, why mope at home evenings? I often get orders for two for the theaters an’ vaudeville shows. What about comin’ along down-town to-night? A bit of dinner an’ a cabaret’d cheer you up after to-day’s unpleasantness.”

Winifred grew scarlet with vexation. The man had always been a repulsive person in her eyes, and, unversed though she was in the world’s wiles, she knew instinctively that his present pretensions were merely a cloak for rascality. One should be fair to Winifred, too. Like every other girl, she had pictured the Prince Charming who would come into her life some day. But – Fowle! Her gorge rose.

“How dare you follow me here and say such vile things?” she cried hysterically.

“What’s up now?” said Fowle in mock surprise. “What have I said that you should fly off the trolley in that way?”

“I take it that this young lady is telling you to quit,” broke in another voice. “Go, now! Go while the going is good.”

Quietly but firmly elbowing Fowle aside, Rex Carshaw raised his hat and spoke to Winifred.

“If this fellow is annoying you he can soon be dealt with,” he said. “Do you live near? If so, he can stop right here. I’ll occupy his mind till you are out of sight.”

The discomfited masher was snarling like a vicious cur. The first swift glance that measured the intruder’s proportions did not warrant any display of active resentment on his part. Out of the tail of his eye, however, he noticed a policeman approaching on the opposite side of the street. The sight lent a confidence which might have been lacking otherwise.

“Why are you buttin’ in?” he cried furiously. “This young lady is a friend of mine. I’m tryin’ to pull her out of a difficulty, but she’s got me all wrong. Anyhow, what business is it of yours?”

Fowle’s anger was wasted, since Carshaw seemed not to hear. Indeed, why should a chivalrous young man pay heed to Fowle when he could gaze his fill into Winifred’s limpid eyes and listen to her tuneful voice?

“I am very greatly obliged to you,” she was saying, “but I hope Mr. Fowle understands now that I do not desire his company and will not seek to force it on me.”

“Sure he understands. Don’t you, Fowle?” and Carshaw gave the disappointed wooer a look of such manifest purpose that something had to happen quickly. Something did happen. Fowle knew the game was up, and behaved after the manner of his kind.

“You’re a cute little thing, Winifred Bartlett,” he sneered, with a malicious glance from the girl to Carshaw, while a coarse guffaw imparted venom to his utterance. “Think you’re taking an easier road to the white lights, I guess?”

“Guess again, Fowle,” said Carshaw.

He spoke so quietly that Fowle was misled, because the pavement rose and struck him violently on the back of his head. At least, that was his first impression. The second and more lasting one was even more disagreeable. When he sat up, and fumbled to recover his hat, he was compelled to apply a handkerchief to his nose, which seemed to have been reduced to a pulp.

“Too bad you should be mixed up in this disturbance,” Carshaw was assuring Winifred, “but a pup of the Fowle species can be taught manners in only one way. Now, suppose you hurry home!”

The advice was well meant, and Winifred acted on it at once. Fowle had scrambled to his feet and the policeman was running up. From east and west a crowd came on the scene like a well-trained stage chorus rushing in from the wings.

“Now, then, what’s the trouble?” demanded the law, with gruff insistency.

“Nothing. A friend of mine met with a slight accident – that’s all,” said Carshaw.

“It’s – it’s – all right,” agreed Fowle thickly. Some glimmer of reason warned him that an exposé in the newspapers would cost him his job with Brown, Son & Brown. The policeman eyed the damaged nose. He grinned.

“If you care to take a wallop like that as a friendly tap it’s your affair, not mine,” he said. “Anyhow, beat it, both of you!”

Carshaw was not interested in Fowle or the policeman. He had been vouchsafed one expressive look by Winifred as she hurried away, and he watched the slim figure darting up half a dozen steps to a small brown-stone house, and opening the door with a latch-key. Oddly enough, the policeman’s attention was drawn by the girl’s movements. His air changed instantly.

“H’lo,” he said, evidently picking on Fowle as the doubtful one of these two. “This must be inquired into. What’s your name?”

“No matter. I make no charge.”

Fowle was turning away, but the policeman grabbed him.

“You come with me to the station-house,” he said determinedly. “An’ you, too,” he added jerking his head at Carshaw.